There are a number of ways to understand Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel, where he pitches up Saturday night from London.

One is optics, as they like to say in Washington. The presumptive Republican nominee clearly wants to occupy the chilly space visible between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose tense personal relationship feeds the impression that Obama is cool toward not only Bibi, as Netanyahu is universally known, but also toward Israel itself. What supposed evidence of which might exist – the Cairo speech, Obama’s insisting on a settlement freeze as a pre-condition to peace talks with the Palestinians – is both receding in time and being pushed into the background by the keen, almost obsessive attention the White House has paid Israel in the last two years, in official visits, security coordination and, yes, dollars.

The latest arrived Saturday, when Obama signed a bill sending $70 million to Israel to pay for more of the anti-missile batteries called Iron Dome, the wonder technology that’s been knocking down 80 percent of the missiles fired toward Israeli cities from the Gaza Strip. Defense minister Ehud Barak promptly issued a statement of thanks, pointedly calling the aid “yet another expression of the consistent support of the Obama administration, and indeed of the U.S. congress, to the security of the State of Israel.” Such is the power of the incumbency. There will be more. Coming in October, as the fall campaign crests: The largest US-Israel joint military operation in history.

But as the Romney campaign appears to know well, body language is a lot more fun to read than official statements. Of six public events on Sunday, five are “photo sprays,” grip and grins with Israeli politicians, plus Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad. The candidate is seeing Netanyahu twice, in the morning for a meeting, and later for dinner with their wives. The husbands already know each other, and even worked together briefly long ago at Bain Capital. Though Netanyahu told TIME Managing Editor Rick Stengel that they weren’t exactly pals – “He was the whiz kid; I was just in the back of the room” — Romney boasts of the shared history. The men also share a professed esteem for capital markets (much to the chagrin of progressives), and of course antipathy to Obama. Romney refuses to criticize the president while traveling overseas, but his entire visit to Israel is framed by his famous accusation, during the GOP primary, that Obama is “throwing Israel under the bus.”

Much is being made of the fundraiser Romney has scheduled in Jerusalem, a $50,000 –a-head affair that will include Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas billionaire who is also a patron of Netanyahu (Adelson started what is now Israel’s largest newspaper to help get Bibi elected). But the visit also counts as a GOTV — Get Out the Vote — activity. Because while polls show Obama continues to hold the allegiance of Jewish voters in America – stalwart Democrats who vote on social justice and other liberal issues – that’s not the story for American Jews living in Israel. And there are a bunch of them — about 300,000, roughly half of whom are eligible to cast absentee ballots back home. These are Jews who vote Republican, even if they’re not registered that way.

“Oh, it’s amazing,” says Kory Bardash, co-chair of Republicans Abroad in Israel. “Whereas the American Jewish vote in 2008 was nearly 80% for Obama, here in Israel expats went 76% for McCain.” Many were registered Democrats, who likely voted blue on “down-ballot” race, like congressional seats. “But when you live abroad,” says Bardash, “you really focus on foreign policy.”

In the big picture, Romney’s pointed show of support for Israel is surely intended to impress Christian evangelical voters. “Christian Zionists” are Israel’s secret weapon in U.S. politics, a powerful constituency for the Jewish State present in every congressional district. But in a close race, Bardash says, absentee ballots can make a difference. (Just ask Al Gore.) So it can’t hurt to motivate the GOP’s most reliable Jewish vote.

“Of the 150,000 eligible voters living in Israel, I’d say about 40 to 50 percent come from safe Democratic states – Illinois, New York, California,” he says. “That leaves about 75,000 or 80,000, including a lot of people from swing states: Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin…”

Karl Vick has been TIME's Jerusalem bureau chief since 2010, covering Israel,the Palestine territories and nearby sovereignties. He worked 16 years at the Washington Post in Nairobi, Istanbul, Baghdad, Los Angeles and Rockville, MD.

Funding missile defenses helps US interests and doesn't get people killed. Attacking Iran to please Israel will get Americans killed and make us more enemies. We can make our own enemies, we don't need to borrow Israel's. Romney is listening to too many warmongers.

funding american missle defense systems however is a time and money sink. we dont need a reagun to shoot down missles, like the republicans think we do.

we dont need to have our paw in everything, either. i would love to see what happens, if for four years, america became a passive nation and focused on infrastructure and domestic issues. i can only imagine the devastation the world would go into.

Of course, Jews living in isreal and registered to vote in Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin better hope that the GOP efforts to remove people from the rolls doesn't just eliminate their right to vote with no way to recover on election day. Just collateral damage like the large GOP losses expected in the PA efforts where they though they were eliminating just 700,000 Democratic voters and it turns out that over half are registered Republicans. Oops!

I learnd about "ellow journalism" when I was in grade school, but I never thought I'd grow up to see it every day. I used to respect Time, in fact, I used to subscribe to it, but they have such a wacked-out view of the word and they slant their stories with the words they choose to use that I am totally disgusted with them.

Netanyahu and Romney worked together in 1976 at the Boston Consulting Group. They are not close friends but have kept up ties through the years.

Mr. Netanyahu offered Mr. Romney pointers on how to shrink government in Massachusetts, and Mr. Romney later counseled Mr. Netanyahu on which American officials to meet with as he tried to encourage pension funds to divest of Iranian businesses, with the help of Bain Capital I'm sure.

In other words, Romney and Netanyahu are acquainted with each other and remain on friendly terms and heaven forbid that someone who wants to be president should happen to have friendly relations with the PM of an important ally.

@facebook-100000039777325:disqus Oh the Mormons are Zionists alright. They believe they are Jews from "the stick of Ephraim", also they believe that Native Americans are Jews too, that's what the Book of Mormon is all about, if you can stay awake long enough to read through it.

Almost everyone is a jew in happy Mormon theology... except for maybe black people.

If one inspects the Mormon position on the Israeli/non-Israeli conflict of Palestine it is noticeable that one of the Mormon church's favorite phrases is that, '...it doesn't take sides." Then what is Mitt Romney doing overseas advocating for an Israel let alone a 'Jewish state'?

Latter Day President Howard W. Hunter on the subject: “We do not need to apologize nor mitigate any of the prophecies concerning the Holy Land. We believe them and declare them to be true. But this does not give us justification to dogmatically pronounce that others of our Father’s children are not children of promise. … Both the Jews and the Arabs are children of our Father. They are both children of promise, and as a church we do not take sides. We have love for and an interest in each.” (Devotional speech BYU 1979)

Yep. The decendents of the Jewish tribes loaded up in a wooden submarine and came to the new world where they became the native americans. Of course if you look at mormon art work those native americans were white people, but who cares about those pesky little inconsistencies?

Mitt Romney is the most dis honest piece of garbage ever to live the US . Beside his best friend . Grover fat pig Norquest. Grover is so fat and un shavin he smells like sht and pss in between his fat tissue. The guy is a lazy fat slob. His McDonald's diet and never shaving proves he is a worthless lazy fat slob and the Republican party has to call him before they can make a decision. Do the stupid Republicans know what fat pig want's because it is grover fat pig that will be telling Snake Mitt what to do. And that is a fact. The Republican party is in dire straights. The party is so broken they fight in front of everyone And none of them are on the same page as the Dems are professional and get along and are on the same page

Mark should show more respect for the next President of the USA and Leader of the Free World? Hypocrite. You don't show any respect for the REAL President of the USA and Leader of the Free World. Trot out an imaginary President and suddenly he deserves respect. You live in a very strange world.

Im sure tax evader snake mitt is hiding American dollar's in Israel to. Sometime i wonder if the Republicans have takin the foreign oath that they will do whatever they can for any country outside the US while screwing the US. Romney is a lying snake and if he is elected the US will go into depression status for at least 4 years. Tax evader mitt can't do anymore then Obama can to revive this economy. Fact. everyone i know working in shops or corporations are so busy in the US they are working 10 and 12 hour days. My irrigation company is on fire im so busy. Things are not as bad as Romney and his broken party make it out to be.

he championed an exclusively Jewish state Israel when Mormons are instructed not to take sides in the Israeli/non-Israeli conflict. If one inspects the Mormon position on the Israeli/non-Israeli conflict of Palestine it is noticeable that one of the Mormon church's favorite phrases is that, '...it doesn't take sides." Then what is Mitt Romney doing overseas advocating for an Israel let alone a 'Jewish state'?

Latter Day President Howard W. Hunter on the subject: “We do not need to apologize nor mitigate any of the prophecies concerning the Holy Land. We believe them and declare them to be true. But this does not give us justification to dogmatically pronounce that others of our Father’s children are not children of promise. … Both the Jews and the Arabs are children of our Father. They are both children of promise, and as a church we do not take sides. We have love for and an interest in each.” (Devotional speech BYU 1979)

Mitt is an attractive mannequin with toy ideas spinning around in his brain. He is no statesman. He has a doctirnaire vision of the end times where he fancies himself a great figure, and so his back patting of paramilitary Christians in Israel awaiting the end times. He has no grasp of the plurality of thought that made America great. Are you willing to be a pawn in Mormon machinations?

A man who was born with no money. Without a father, and with all the odds against him. Lives the American Dream by getting into college and becoming a lawyer through hard work and preserverance. He loses his mother to cancer because she has no insurance. He experienced life events that 99% of Americans have to go through.

VS

A man born into a wealthy family with a silver spoon. You tell me which one is more American? Which person has experienced REAL middle class issues? Romney is an aristocrat from 3 generations of super wealth same with George Bush. Clinton and Obama are men who came from nothing and are truly living the American dream.